UEFA punishes Belarus national teams and clubs for the war in Ukraine

 
The European Football Association (UEFA) announced on Thursday that Belarusian national teams and clubs will play their European matches on neutral stadiums and without a public presence, against the background of the military attack launched by Russia against Ukraine. UEFA stop short of kicking Russia teams out of their competitions, as they order them and Ukrainian sides to play at neutral venues due to escalating conflict.
UEFA issued an official statement, saying: "The European Union decides that all Belarusian clubs will play in neutral territories in its competitions until further notice, moreover, the matches will be played without spectators."
The Statement  added: "The UEFA Executive Committee will hold other extraordinary meetings, on a regular and ongoing basis where appropriate, to reassess the legal and factual situation as it evolves and adopt further decisions as necessary."
FIFA issued an official statement saying, “Following the preliminary decisions adopted by the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, which provided for additional measures, FIFA and UEFA today jointly decided that all Russian teams, whether national teams or clubs, will be suspended from participating in the tournament. Both FIFA and UEFA competitions until further notice.
In light of the decisions of FIFA and UEFA, the Russian national team was excluded from participating in the qualifying play-off for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, along with the Spartak Moscow team from the European League competition.